5 Reasons to Choose a Gym over Running

When we think of one of the main reasons we might start exercising, most of us will agree to weight-loss. Weight management and achieving the perfect body shape are some of the biggest motivating factors behind exercising. But when we first decide to exercise, we are often confronted with a question, what is better? Should we join a gym or is it okay to just go for a run? Will that help me in losing weight?

If you too have questions like this concerning your fitness, then read on 5 reasons why you should choose to go to the gym over activities like running.

Many among us would choose to run to stay fit rather than joining a gym. And it kind of makes sense. Running is free of cost, it doesn’t need any equipment, and you could do it whenever you want. But we say that going to the gym is a lot more beneficial for losing weight than running.

And here’s why…

1. Personal Trainer and Gym Instructors

Gyms and fitness centers provide you with personal trainers and gym instructors who can advise you on activities to do to efficiently lose weight. Trainer and instructors are well aware of what set of activities can bring you closer to your goal. This, obviously, would depend on your body. Accordingly, they can help you draw a routine of different exercising and weight training that suits your body the best.

When we are running, we tend to go with the flow without knowing how much we need to run, for how long, and with how much intensity. Sometimes we might run too fast or too slow, too far or too close. This cannot help us reach our goal, or worse, it can harm us if we do not do it right.

2. Diet Schedule

Personal trainers and gym instructors often help us to chart out our diet plan that can aid our weight training. They can give us the right nutrition information to give our bodies the nourishment it needs without increasing the calorie intake. This is important to know because losing weight is mainly based on burning more calories than we intake. So eating a diet with low calories but enough nutrients can help us lose weight faster.

On our own, when we think of dieting, we mostly think about reducing the amount of food intake or reducing the amount of any specific food like burger or pizza. This is correct in a way but diet can only help if we are getting the required amount of nutrition for maintaining the health of our body. If we don’t get the necessary nutrition it could be harmful to our health.

3. Increases Metabolism for Longer

To manage weight, we need to have stronger metabolism. Exercising regularly can increase our rate of metabolism. Although running does intensify our metabolism, weight training at the gym helps to keep our metabolism raised for longer. This means that calories will be burning up for longer with correct weight training as compared to running.

4. Increases Muscle Mass

Muscles are tissues that require calories to maintain and protect themselves from wear and tear. So, they tend to use up calories while not just working out but also while we are resting. Training regularly in a gym replaces fat with muscles.This means we would constantly be burning calories for hours, if not days, after our gym workout.

Unlike gym training, running will only help us burn calories during the act.

5. Isn't Stressful

Many trainers and professional gym instructors believe that running is a high impact exercise with a higher risk of injuries as it puts immense stress on our joints. As compared to that, resistance training is less risky and more impactful.

Several studies suggest that people can be addicted to running, so much so, that it becomes a strong coping mechanism for them to neglect their daily activities along with their problems. Most of these cases were about excessive running.

Scheduled exercising at gyms or fitness centers can help you regulate the time you spend exercising so that you have enough time to spend with the people that matter to you, doing things that you love.

Summary

Gyms and fitness centers give us way more benefits as compared to running. With a proper member of a good gym, we can achieve all our fitness goals without any compromise. Sure running is a good way to keep ourselves fit in circumstances when we cannot go to the gym, even so, it is advisable to practice all-round exercise routines like High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). When we can go to a gym, it is better to choose the gym than running on our own. If you aren’t sure about which gym to choose, check out these tips to find the perfect gym for yourself.

Let us know how you like to keep yourselves fit and healthy when you are not able to go to a gym. Do you take a run or practice some no equipment exercise routines at home? Share your answers in the comments below.